Community Led Actions

This photo came today from Jon Cooke in Church Stretton, Shropshire. Stretton Climate Care recently launched carbon footprinting classes in the local library. It seem they’re quite popular. Jon will be at the Community Action Planning event at Trafford Hall on 7th April and will also be talking about some of the other community led actions going on in Church Stretton and surrounding villages. There’s a link to their website on the right.

(photo by Julie Mellors)

Transition Chester Begins

Watching Transition Chester’s screening of The End of Suburbia on Wednesday I was surprised by how many of the questions and comments following the film related to a “technical fix” to the combined challenges we face due to climate change and peak oil. There are similarities here with Ashton Hayes, where the Parish Council’s aim to be the first carbon neutral village in England seems to be about innovative solutions to energy production rather than about helping residents to adapt to a more localised, low carbon lifestyle. There is a view among some residents that “offsetting will save us” and so the opportunity to empower people to take more control over their lives is overlooked as once again there seems to be the promise of a technological fix to our energy problems.

For me, transition seems to be about an inclusive and integrated approach to these challenges and presents an opportunity for us all to become more involved in choosing how we live our lives. Technology has to play a part of course and working with planners and councillors will be essential, but there must also be the opportunity for individuals to see how they can make a difference in their own community, living and connecting with our locality on a more emotional level.

I was heartened to see representatives from so many different groups at Alexanders this week and I am sure the next screening on 23rd April of The Power of Community will be equally well attended. Here is agreat opportunity for all the low carbon / transition / carbon neutral initiatives in the area to work together and share skills and resources.

You can find out more about Transition Towns by clicking on the links on the right or by emailing transitionchester@yahoo.co.uk

There are also links to several low carbon community initiatives too – try Youlgrave for starters to find out what a small community can do.

Transition Chester First Event

Tonight there will be a film screening of End of Suburbia at Alexanders Jazz Bar, Rufus Court, Chester (8pm). This is your chance to come along and find out more about the concept of Transition Towns, watch a great film meet interesting people  and get involved in future events (if you wish).

For more details you can email transitionchester@yahoo.co.uk

Transition Ambridge? Hooray

Listening to the Archers is a solitary pleasure in my house, I hide away so the family can’t make fun. Last night’s episode came as a complete surprise – Pat Archer wants to bring the Transition Movement to Ambridge – and with her track record I’m sure she’ll succeed. It got me thinking about life here in Ashton Hayes, about how localisation can be the key to strong and resilient communities and how I live my life here now and I wondered how Ashton Hayes would fare as a “Transition Village”.

While the Parish Council explore grand plans for microgeneration and anaerobic digestors, some Ashton Hayes residents get on with living a low carbon life in very simple and practical ways. They are aware of the need to adapt to the challenges climate change brings and the very real need to reduce our dependency on oil, but they also know that it’s about good quality of life, not self denial and “going without”. We don’t have an “Ashton Hayes pound” like Totnes, but we do trade the most valuable commodity we have – our time – and surplus produce changes hands regularly. In autumn it’s not unusual to see boxes of apples sitting on people’s doorsteps with the hand written message “help yourself”. Just this week I swapped 2 bags of horse manure for a bag of autumn fruiting rasberry canes and some lovely herbaceous perennials for my front garden. We share skills too, when our lawnmower broke, a neighbour repaired it and in return we cooked him a meal using produce from the garden of another neighbour who still grows enough veg to feed his 4 children even though they’ve all left home. Another neighbour is fixing the bust zip on my favourite skirt so I can wear it again and in return I’ll make her a cake using eggs from friends round the corner who keep hens.

At weekends, you can often find me foraging wood for the stove from nearby woodland (we haven’t paid for any wood so far this winter) and hardly a week goes by without someone leaving wood on the drive for us.

This village life is far from a perfect rural idyll, the teenagers complain there’s nowhere to go and nothing to do, without a car it’s hard to access services such as doctors and dentists and with only one small shop  it’s hard to resist the temptation to jump in the car and go to the supermarket. But if we seriously want to live a low carbon life then we must embrace these challenges and see them as opportunities. Some older residents liken it to life during the war, when rationing meant that luxury foods from overseas couldn’t be relied upon, when you ate what you grew and didn’t throw things away without considering giving them a “second life”.

I love my life and can’t think of anywhere I’d rather live. I know that real life is not like the Archers, but I’ll be following Pat and the other Ambridge residents on their “Transition Adventure” and I’m wondering how long it will be before Eddie Grundy accepts Ambridge Pounds in exchange for his homemade cider and Matt Crawford gives up his prestige motor for a folding bike.

(There’s a link to the Transition Movement wikki site on the right hand side of this page and if you want to listen to the Archers you can find it on the Radio 4 page of the BBC website).

Domestic Carbon Footprinting Masterclass

As part of the Action Planning event on 7th April we’ll be offering participants the chance to calculate their own carbon footprint. We’re delighted that Jon Cooke from Stretton Climate Care (there is a link to their site on the right) will be joining us to show how his organisation run successful community footprinting evenings. Places are limited to 10 for this session and are filling up fast so please let me know when you book if you are interested. Participants will need to bring past 12 months utility bills and annual mileage to get an accurate calculation. Jon will also be happy to answer questions about how the group was established and fill you in on their current projects.

Action Planning for Community Energy Saving Projects

Monday 7th April at Trafford Hall, Cheshire

30 places are available at this free workshop for community organisations and invididuals who are working within or with communities in Cheshire to start or develop low carbon / energy saving projects.

We will be joined by members of Stretton Climate Care in Shropshire who will be offering a “Carbon Footprinting Masterclass” during the afternoon. Limited to 10 participants this will equip you with the skills to carry out a full domestic carbon footprint using the ActonCO2 calculator designed by DEFRA. Please enquire on booking if you are interested in this.

Stretton Climate Care are truly inspirational, click on the link on the right to find out more about what they have been up to. Further details of the workshop at Trafford Hall appear on the events page. We have some excellent facilitators and workshop leaders lined up to make the day fun and informative.

Susatinable Youlgrave Wins Award

I am delighted to announce that Sustainable Youlgrave in Derbyshire won the

Community Action section of the national Future friendly Awards 2008. Chair, John Youatt received the award from Sir Trevor MacDonald at the awards ceremony in London Last week. More details about the Future Friendly Awards at www.futurefriendly.co.uk

Well done to everyone involved. You can click on the link on the right to find out more about what’s happening in Youlgrave .

Keep up the good work guys.

Community action on Climate Change

On 7th April Ash-worth Timebank will be hosting a 1 day workshop on community action planning. The theme will be low carbon / energy efficiency projects. Thanks to generous support of Communities North West there will be no charge for the event, which includes lunch and a resource pack. If your voluntary organisation or community group would be interested in attending, please let me know. Flyers and booking forms will be posted next week via email to subscribers of  my mailing list, Sustainable Cheshire Forum, VREN and Cheshire Community Council. Please contact me via the blog if you would like to be sent details.

Climate Change event for Cheshire

I am thrilled to let you all know that the funding has finally been approved and Ash-worth Timebank will be hosting a Climate Change event for Cheshire at Trafford Hall in April 2008. The aim will be to put community groups that want to develop low carbon projects  in touch with each other and develop support networks so we can all learn from each other. If you know of a community group which would like to be involved in this free event or you can offer expertise in facilitation / support please get in touch. Look out for more exciting news in the next few days. The next few months are going to be very busy for  me – and exciting for communities and individuals across the UK  working to adapt to  the challenges we face in a future without cheap access to fossil fuels -  and the threat  climate change poses for us all. I’ll be posting more information in a day or so.

Training the trainers

I’ve just spent 2 exhausting days at Trafford Hall with residents organisations from Chester. We had 2 inspiring trainers and I’ve come home with lots of new ideas and a few things I’d forgotten. Just goes to show, we can always learn something new and be inspired by groups who have the imagination and the drive to inspire their communities. Fortified by plenty of Fairtrade chocolate (thanks Lucy) we all had the opportunity to develop our knowledge about energy conservation and develop an action plan to support our community projects. I’m looking forward to seeing how the action plans we devised  work out and hopefully sharing skills with other communities across Chester. I also learnt about projects in Chester I knew nothing about, a community garden, an urban farm and an energy saving project which has several hard working volunteers working with their neighbours.  Thanks to Cath Forkin for inviting me along and to all the participants for making the course such good fun.